I spend two to three hours a week on an indoor rowing machine, so this book about the formation of the 1984 U.S. men’s sculling team piqued my interest.

The jacket blurb on my paperback copy says that “The focus of David Halberstam’s fierce and penetrating account is the 1984 Olympic single-scull trials.” Thankfully, that’s inaccurate. The trials occur just over half-way through the narrative, which follows the story all the way through to the Olympics themselves.

Having some experience with the pain associated with rowing 2000-meter races, I could immediately identify with the author’s take on the sport: “Rowing, particularly single sculling, inflicts on the individual in every race a level of pain associated with few other sports.”

Far beyond that, however, this is a book about athletes who compete only to win. America’s Olympic-class rowers cannot hope for lucrative advertising endorsements, professional contracts, or media jobs. They compete in front of sparse crowds and rarely show up in the local newspaper, much less on SportsCenter.

Halberstam’s writing and storytelling are incredible. He details the lives of both rowers and coaches in an intense intimacy. I suppose there’s some “spin” in what these men told Halberstam—everyone likes to put the best face on what he’s done—but the failures seem just as honestly told as the successes.